Buttons
by Vietta
Summary: Buttons are magical things and Reno's obsession with them manages to push the buttons of everyone within arms reach. Slight language, mostly on Reno's part.


Reno had never seen something so beautiful in his life. The tiny shining jewel that was gleaming on his brand new shirt was hypnotizing. He ripped it off, not caring that his already half-unbuttoned shirt was now even more open. This tiny little button was a paragon of its kind. It was perfectly round, gleaming, and stark white. The four holes that previously had thread running through them were evenly spaced and exactly the same shape and size. Reno looked down at the rest of the buttons on his shirt and after a few seconds of thinking he ripped them all off, leaving his open shirt with a only few stray threads to remember them by.

That first button was the start of a hobby, of a collection, of an _obsession. _Soon Reno wasn't able to keep himself from removing buttons from shirts, pants, jackets, and even purses as he walked the streets and hallways he frequented. At first no one really minded, thinking that Reno was simply having a long awaited mental breakdown, but once the people he worked with were holding their shirts together with paperclips and keeping their pants up with safety pins they decided something needed to be done. However, no one in their right mind approaches a Turk unless they are, in fact, a Turk.

Rude tried to talk some sense into Reno, but left his office feeling violated and embarrassed out of his mind as he zipped up his jacket to hide the fact that every button he had was gone. He thanked Gaia for his belt because otherwise his pants would've fallen to the ground moments after he entered the room.

Tseng took one look in Reno's office and turned on his heel and walked away without another word. The fact that Reno had canning jars filled to the brim with buttons and even more buttons scattered across the room coupled with the fact that his walls were practically wallpapered with the variously sized things was too much for him to handle, so he didn't handle it. He really didn't want to lose another shirt to Reno's button grabbing tendencies and decided on the spot that if Reno wanted to collect buttons, then by Gaia he could collect the godsdamned buttons.

Elena on the other hand was far more persistent than her fellow Turks. She tried every method of 'sense talking' she knew, even lowering her standards enough to offer Reno a date if he stopped his obsessive button hobby. Tseng had not been amused by her questionable methods, even if they hadn't worked.

After a week of failed attempts and the tragic loss of nine different shirts Elena had a revolutionary idea. She waltzed into the office wearing a very non-regulation shirt, a shirt that Tseng was half tempted to penalize her for. The idea behind this non-regulation shirt, besides the fact that it made her look amazing, was that it was completely buttonless and therefore, Reno proof.

Elena walked into Reno's office where he sat making snow angels in a field of buttons, his hair disheveled and stubble covering the lower half of his face. It looked like he had poured out the contents of each jar of buttons and jumped in the ensuing pile, scattering the tiny plastic and metal disks in every direction. He sat up as she entered, his eyes automatically scanning her clothes for buttons. Finding none he sighed and laid back down, waving her away impatiently. "Laney I'm busy go away." He continued to make a snow angel in his button field.

Elena wouldn't have that, so she plopped herself onto the floor next to him. He raised an eyebrow at her and hissed as she picked up one of his precious buttons and began looking at it intently. She squinted at it and turned it over, trying very hard to figure out just what it was Reno saw in the small, shockingly green thing. "Reno, why do you collect buttons?"

Reno beamed as he watched Elena scan the button, thinking that someone was finally understanding his interest in the tiny plastic treasures he had hoarded. "They're pretty!"

Elena fought to keep herself from running a hand over her face, succeeding only because her hands were occupied with the buttons. "Ya wanna know why I think you want all these buttons?"

Reno's face suddenly took on a very puppy-like expression, his head cocked to one side and his eyes shining with confusion. "Is pretty not a good enough reason?"

Elena smirked and dropped the button back into the floor sized pile. "No, I think you collect buttons because you're life is incomplete."

"How the hell do you get that outta fuckin' buttons?" Reno grabbed the button Elena had just dropped and set it back in its 'proper place' amongst the others, unhappy to see the green mingling with the blue.

Elena grabbed another button and held it up to the light. "I think this button represents your uncompleted and empty life. Every hole in this button represents some hole in you that you want to have filled. You're jealous of buttons because they have thread that winds through them and binds them to the fabric they depend on. You keep taking them away from the fabric so that they can't have what you can't. You can't keep your life in one piece and you're jealous because buttons keep everything together and everyone depends on them, something you want. You want people to need you, and if you have their buttons they need you." Elena dropped the button back into the pile and looked at Reno expectantly, searching him for any sign of emotion.

Reno sat in his button field, mouth agape. He opened and closed it like a fish drowning in air, simply unable to speak for a few moments. When he was finally able to vocalize his thoughts he yelled. "What the fuck Laney? How many crappy talk shows and soap operas have you watched lately? And people think I have a problem? That was the most nonsensical piece of absolute bullshit I have heard in a long damned time! What the fuck was wrong with the 'they're pretty' explanation?"

Elena sighed in defeat and walked out of the room with her head down, the failure squashing the last bit of motive she had. "Go play with your buttons broken boy."

Reno watched her leave with confusion still written plainly across his face. He sat dumbfounded and looked at the vast plains of buttons that carpeted his floor and papered his walls. A frown crossed his rugged, sleep-deprived features and he threw open his window.

Rude walked to Reno's office, brain clouded with confusion and fear as he heard a sound similar to rain and angered screams coming from the room. He cracked the door open and peeked into the office, throwing the door open once he saw what was taking place. Reno was shoveling buttons out the window as fast as he could in a colorful deluge speeding towards the ground below. Handful after handful of the colorful disks poured out of the window, pattering on the ground and explaining the raining sound Rude had heard earlier. Rude looked past Reno and out the window, dodging the buttons Reno threw past him. The sidewalk below was coated in buttons and people were screaming as they tried to dodge the tiny bullets that fell from hundreds of feet above their heads. He turned to Reno with a perturbed mindset, hoping that Reno's mental breakdown wasn't simply getting worse. Reno looked up at him and chucked a jarful of red and yellow buttons out the window with an annoyed grunt. "Girls ruin everything!"

**

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Author's Note: I found a button on my floor. **

**Then this story popped into my head.**

**Forgive the apparent randomness, this plot bunny has been jumping around my head and creating chaos in my other stories so I had to get rid of it.**


End file.
